[ih] infrastructure history [was: who invented the Internet]

Larry Sheldon LarrySheldon at cox.net
Wed Jul 25 18:04:45 PDT 2012


On 7/25/2012 7:09 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> It really is disturbing how some folks pretend that government had no
> role in <name your infrastructure>.
>
> Seems to me that there's an ongoing historical pattern:
>
> Roads
> Waterworks
> Railroads (land grants, Army protection)
> Telegraph (right-of-way grants, Army protection)
> Telephone (right-of way grants)
> Airplanes and Airlines (defense purchases spawned the aircraft industry,
> Air Mail spawned air freight and passenger service)
> Radio and Telephone (airwave grants)
> and so on......
>
> Miles Fidelman

The question here is "what is 'government'?".

Is it some ethereal source of funding and wisdom the alone gets things done?

Or is it the product of individuals pooling resources toward some common 
goal?

I think for a long time it tends to the former, and most of what gets 
done, gets done in spite of it, not because of it.

Most of the things in the list were first done by individuals and small 
groups of individuals, much of it in bitter opposition to the government.
-- 
Requiescas in pace o email           Two identifying characteristics
                                         of System Administrators:
Ex turpi causa non oritur actio      Infallibility, and the ability to
                                         learn from their mistakes.
ICBM Data:  http://g.co/maps/e5gmy        (Adapted from Stephen Pinker)



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